Tonerider Pure Vintage for Strat: Review

After having used the stock, ceramic, flat pole magnet p/ups in my MIJ Strat for 20 years I thought I'd try a comparatively cheap upgrade. The original pickups weren't bad, they had a warmer & slightly throaty tone compared to the Toneriders and will probably find their way into a cheap project guitar at some point as they are now "aged" pickups! (When I took the (original) scratchplate off I discovered a WD music sticker on the back !).
The Tonerider set uses a mix of alnico 3 & alnico 5 magnets ( From what I've read that's alnico 5 on the bass strings & alnico 3 on the treble strings, rather than one alnico 5 p/up & 2 alnico 3's). They are noticeably brighter than the ceramics throughout with more "sparkle". Individual notes are clearly defined & they deal with high frequencies really well. The Tonerider site specifies the DC resistance of the set as: neck 5.75k, middle 6.1k, bridge 6.4k. The set I received measured: neck 5.9k, middle 6.2k bridge 6.3k but I've managed to find a good balance without any difficulty. Compared to the Texas Specials I have in my other (USA) Strat they definitely give a more vintage (and to my ears, better balanced) classic Strat tone and as the adverts say, they do clean Knopfler & Gilmour tones very well. I'm not going to go overboard about these, but as a relatively cheap upgrade (£69.99 sterling) I'm certainly very happy with them.

(Edit): Comparing them with the stock pickups in a late 80's USA Standard, played by the same person, through the same rig, the Toneriders have a more "acoustic" quality & sound much cleaner at any given setting.


Disclaimer: I have no connection to Tonerider pickups - I'm just a happy customer.

Glad you found your tone,congrats!

Wait till you try the Surfari set!

Tonerider makes very good pickups on a bargain, it is not the money buth the sound that is important. Do not believe all the aftermarket stuff and thew price tags on them just follow Your ears and be gone !! :dude

I bought a set of pure vintage from tonerider, for me they lack hi end sparkle. I have to crank the presence on the amp right up to get them to sound anything like a fender. The only other set of strat pickups i have are wagner SRs, but thats like putting up a fiat 500 with a bmw m3. For the money they are ok but this nonsense about my search for tone heaven is over, please lets stay on planet earth.

Seriously? they are the brightest set of strat pickups I've got.
I've got them in a Basswood MIJ body with solid Maple neck,
and I stand by my earlier post. Great value for £69.99 sterling.

I don't think any of the previous posts mentioned achieving tone heaven. No doubt a true boutique set will perform better

Lineboss, it would be considered extraordinarily rude on virtually any forum to refer to a another poster's words as "nonsense." On this forum, which is not made up of the hobbyists that populate most guitar boards but of players with enough experience to understand that every guitar player/amp/signal chain is different, it makes you sound like to don't know what you're talking about. Direstaits got his results, you got yours... presenting your own results as absolute is, well.... nonsense.

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Originally Posted by silent j.

Lineboss, it would be considered extraordinarily rude on virtually any forum to refer to a another poster's words as "nonsense." On this forum, which is not made up of the hobbyists that populate most guitar boards but of players with enough experience to understand that every guitar player/amp/signal chain is different, it makes you sound like to don't know what you're talking about. Direstaits got his results, you got yours... presenting your own results as absolute is, well.... nonsense.

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